The morning came in loud, hot, and too damned cheerful for the kind of day it was shaping up to be. I’ve never trusted sunlight. It’s the kind of thing that lies to your face. Dresses up bloodstains like rose petals, warms the blade before it sinks between your ribs. People smile more in the daylight, but that doesn’t mean they’re honest. It just means you can see their teeth.

  Give me smoke, shadows, a fog thick enough to hide in. Give me something I can bleed in without the world pretending it’s still pretty. I hadn’t slept. Not really. The cot in my tent might as well have been carved from stone and sadness. My mind had been running the mission, the orders, the silence in Varin’s voice when he admitted what was coming. But even through all that, one name kept cutting through the noise.

  Agrin.

  I hadn’t seen him in weeks. He was always slipping between borders and shadows, chasing whispers and contracts, that damn longbow of his never far from his hand. He hunted like a ghost and kissed like he was afraid the war might steal us both mid-breath. I didn’t like how much I’d been thinking about him. Didn’t like how my heart had started to do that traitorous little lurch when I heard his name. But I couldn’t ignore the message he sent. Short, urgent, and burned into a carved sliver of bone: Meet me near the old watchtower. South trail. Sunset glow.

  I knew the spot. And I knew he’d be there. I just didn’t know what he was going to ask me. Or what it would cost to say no.

  The trail up to the watchtower was overgrown, gnarled roots and ankle-breaker rocks half-hidden under golden grass that caught the sun like fire. The kind of place you’d call beautiful if you hadn’t seen it drenched in blood before. I had. I remember dragging a scout’s body down this path during the Frostmarch campaign. His neck had been opened clean, like a butcher’s ribbon. Now birdsong flitted through the trees. Too peaceful. Too calm. Like the world was trying to pretend there wasn’t a war waiting just beyond the ridge.

  Then I saw him.

  He stood near the broken stairs of the old stone tower, his back to the sunlight, one hand resting casually on his bow, the other on his hip. Hair the color of burnt honey, skin sun-touched and scarred in all the right places. His cloak stirred with the breeze like it had better things to do than cling to him.

  Agrin. The half-elf bastard always looked like something out of a bard’s ballad—tragic past, sharp jaw, eyes that could flay lies down to bone. He turned when he heard me approach. His smile wasn’t wide, but it hit me like a punch I didn’t want to dodge.

  “Lena,” he said. Just that. My name. No apology. No fanfare.

  I stopped a few feet from him. Close enough to smell the pine on his leathers. Close enough to remember how it felt when he kissed me that first time—like he’d been starving for years and I was the first meal that didn’t taste like ash.

  “You look tired,” he said softly, studying my face.

  “I am,” I said. “But I’m still standing.”

  He smiled again. “Wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  For a moment, neither of us moved. Just two warriors standing in a world too full of silence. Then I stepped forward and pressed my hand against his chest, felt his heartbeat under leather and breath and bone. He didn’t flinch. He never did.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d show,” he said.

  I looked up at him. “You always know I will. That’s the problem.”

  His hand slid up my arm, tracing the seam of a scar near my shoulder. “Still think this is a bad idea?”

  I didn’t answer. Not right away. The words didn’t come easy, not when he looked at me like I was the only reason he hadn’t burned the whole continent down already. “I think,” I said slowly, “that you’re dangerous.”

  His fingers paused.

  “And I think,” I added, “that I don’t care.”

  We kissed then. Not gentle. Not desperate. Just heat and truth and that old ache we kept pretending didn’t own us. His hands found the back of my neck. Mine found his belt and stayed there. But we didn’t go further. Because there was a war coming. And because some part of me knew—whatever he was about to ask me… it was going to tear everything in half.

  The kiss broke, eventually. Not because either of us wanted it to, but because the world doesn’t let people like us keep things that good for long. I leaned my forehead against his, eyes closed, just breathing. Just… being. His hand stayed at the back of my neck, rough thumb brushing slow across my pulse. He always touched me like I was something alive—not a weapon, not a soldier—just Lena.

  “I missed you,” he whispered, voice barely louder than the wind threading through the watchtower ruins.

  I wanted to say it back. Instead, I sat down on the flat stone step behind him, tugging him down with me. He didn’t fight it. He settled in close, our shoulders brushing. His warmth sank through me, familiar and maddening.

  “I’ve had sandstorms gentler than you,” I muttered.

  He laughed. Not loud. Not smug. Just real.

  “You love it,” he said.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, princeling.”

  “You kissed me first.”

  “I’ll kiss you last, too, if you keep talking.”

  His grin faded slowly. Not gone, just softer. “Lena…”

  “Don’t,” I said, before he could ruin the moment with words that made it feel more fragile than it already was.

  He didn’t try again. Just let the quiet stretch between us, safe and weighted. I looked out toward the trees. Sunlight spilled through the branches in long golden blades, slicing the clearing into light and shadow. I hated how pretty it was. Hated that it made me want things I didn’t have time for.

  “I don’t do halfway,” I said at last, eyes still fixed on the horizon.

  “I know.”

  “If I fall for someone, it’s not a candle flame. It’s a godsdamn wildfire. I’ll burn down everything for them.”

  Agrin’s hand found mine, warm and steady.

  “I’ve seen you on the field, Lena. I know how you fight. But I’ve also seen how you grieve. And I know how you love.”

  I turned to him, searching his face. “You don’t get to say that like it’s a compliment.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not. It’s a warning. To me.”

  His thumb traced the edge of my palm, slow, thoughtful.

  “I didn’t expect you to show up in my life like a storm wrapped in iron. But I’m glad you did.”

  “Don’t make me regret it.”

  “Never,” he said.

  I leaned into him then, just enough to rest my head against his shoulder. My braid slid across his chest. He didn’t flinch. He never did. That was the trouble with him—he made me feel safe. Not soft. Not weak. Just… seen. For a few minutes, we stayed like that. No ranks. No orders. No war. Just a broken prince and a soldier who didn’t know how to stop bleeding.

  His voice broke the silence, low and careful. “If the world were different…”

  “But it’s not,” I said. “And we are who we are.”

  Still, I held his hand. Still, I stayed beside him. Because love isn’t something people like me get to live in. But sometimes… we visit. We stayed like that for a while—just the two of us wrapped in a moment I already knew wouldn’t last. His hand in mine, the weight of unsaid things pressing down like another kind of armor. Then, as if the wind shifted at the wrong angle, we both spoke at once.

  “I need to tell you—”

  “There’s something you should know—”

  We both stopped, a breath of awkward laughter caught between us.

  “You first,” I said, letting my thumb brush over his knuckles. I thought maybe he was going to tell me he was staying. That he’d had enough of blood and plans. That maybe… just maybe… we could try something normal for once.

  But Agrin wasn’t made for stillness. And neither was I.

  “There’s a man,” he said, his voice shifting into that steady, ranger-calm he used when he was tracking something dangerous. “The one who orchestrated the coup. The one who killed my mother and father, who put the usurper on the throne. I have a name now.”

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  My stomach dropped. “Who?”

  “They call him the Architect. He doesn’t use any other name. But I’ve been following scraps—coin trails, vanishings, merc contracts that lead nowhere—and it all loops back to him. I think he’s in the region. Maybe even near the old catacombs west of Goldmere.”

  I blinked. “That’s… close.”

  He nodded, eyes searching mine. “Too close to ignore. I have a shot, Lena. A real one. If I can pin him down and take him off the board, everything shifts. The whole balance of Aetherhelm tilts. I could rally what’s left of the old guard. I could take it back.”

  There was fire in his voice, the kind that could light banners. The kind that made men believe.

  “And I want you with me,” he said, taking both my hands in his now. “I need you, Lena. Your strength, your instincts, your aim. You’re the only person I trust to watch my back.”

  I stared at him, heart already starting to slide sideways.

  “Agrin…”

  “Come with me,” he said quickly. “Leave the army. Leave this godsdamned mess behind. We could disappear before dawn. Hunt him together. Take back what was mine and build something new. Something for us.”

  The air around us shifted, like the earth was holding its breath. But he hadn’t noticed the change in me yet. I pulled my hands free, slowly. Gently.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  He frowned, confusion flickering like a shadow. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do.”

  “Lena, you’re not sworn for life. They don’t own you.”

  “No,” I said, rising to my feet. “But my people do.”

  He stood with me, reaching out again. I let him touch my arm, but I didn’t lean into it.

  “I’ve got a squad of infiltration specialists going into a tunnel system at dawn. No maps. No support. Redmore’s fingerprints all over it, and two other nobles who’d sleep better if I never crawled out of those caves.”

  His brow furrowed. “Then all the more reason to walk away. You said it yourself—it’s a death march.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “Then don’t be a martyr.”

  “It’s not about martyrdom.”

  He stared at me, frustration blooming across his features. “Lena, I’m offering you freedom. A future. Us.”

  And that’s when it hit me. He really believed that. That his fight, his dream of a reclaimed throne and a dead conspirator, was big enough for the both of us. That I could just slide into the role next to him. That my story ended where his began.

  “You’re offering me your dream,” I said, voice low and flat.

  He hesitated.

  “I thought it could be ours,” he offered.

  “No,” I said. “You didn’t. Because if you knew me—really knew me—you’d never have asked me to abandon them. Not before a mission. Not now.”

  His hand dropped away. “I thought you wanted something different.”

  “I want a lot of things,” I said. “But I don’t leave my people to die. Not for thrones. Not for ghosts. Not for gods. And not for you.”

  We stood in the echo of that sentence for what felt like a lifetime. Then I stepped back.

  “When this is over,” I said, “if there’s still breath in my lungs, we can talk again.”

  “And if there’s not?”

  I gave him a hard smile. He watched me go, silent. No arguments left. The sun was setting by the time I reached the bottom of the hill. And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel its warmth.

  ****

  The sun was low by the time I made it back to camp, bleeding gold into the clouds like the sky itself had taken a hit. I passed the barracks without stopping, nodding once to Brann as he sharpened a blade with the same look some men reserve for prayers. He didn’t ask where I’d been. He didn’t have to. I turned instead toward the heart of the encampment—where the unified temple stood, its canvas stretched tight over a ribcage of old bone and bent iron. You could always find it. Just follow the smell of incense, sweat, and sanctified desperation.

  The temple wasn’t grand, but it was dense—packed with idols, banners, sacred weapons, carved stones, and whatever else the chaplains could haul behind the lines to remind us that we weren’t alone when the knives came out. A shrine for every taste. Some gods glittered in gold, some brooded in ash. I’d seen men offer blood to one and tears to another, hoping something—anything—would give them a better chance of dying slower.

  I stepped inside and let the curtain fall behind me. The air was thick. Too warm. Too heavy. The kind of weight that settles on your shoulders and calls itself peace. I walked past Einarr first—valiant, noble, etched in clean lines and raised sword. The Queen’s favorite, of course. The god of shields and shining causes. I respected him like I respected my sword: useful, but not someone I’d follow into the dark.

  Bess was next—wide-hipped, smiling, arms outstretched like she was about to pull you into the world’s coziest bear hug. I gave her a nod. I had no quarrel with hearths or harvests, but I’d never had much of either. Saraswati watched me with hollow eyes from beneath her veil, fingers forever poised over strings no one could hear. She was beautiful, in that distant way poetry is beautiful—too delicate for mud and marching boots. I kept walking.

  Further in were the war gods—Marzanna with her frost-laced lips and eyes like still water in winter. She sat in silence, cloaked in white, her hand resting on a blade buried in a bed of dead flowers. Soldiers feared her. I didn’t. Stillness was just another way of saying you’d stopped fighting. Next to her stood Crom Cruach, red-lit and cruel, all muscle and fire and teeth. His altar was still wet. Some idiot had slit his palm and left it there, hoping war’s butcher would remember the favor.

  I moved on.

  Past the forge twins of Graywatch—Kothar and Khasis—depicted mid-swing, hammers raised, eternally locked in the act of making something that would outlast us all. Good gods, by most accounts. But like most creators, they didn’t notice the cracks until something broke.

  And then there was Galeen. Her statue was less defined than the others. Carved from driftwood, river rock, and a splash of silver caught mid-laugh. One eye was winking. The other looked like it’d seen too much. A few dice lay scattered at her feet, still warm from a soldier’s palm.

  I paused.

  If I had a patron—and that was a big if—it might’ve been her. Or maybe Exterus, the god of the lost roads and the forgotten. I’d left offerings at his shrines before. Quiet ones. Nothing he ever seemed to notice. Truth was, I didn’t trust any of them. Gods or generals—they all played the same game. Moving pieces on a board they didn’t bleed for. I stood there a while, breathing in the hush. No prayers. Not yet. Just silence and the low hum of something ancient watching from the cracks between shrines.

  Then I moved. Slow. No fanfare. Just a step past Galeen’s little corner of chaos. I didn’t look at her. Didn’t stop walking. But I let the words slip out, soft and low.

  “You know I don’t pray often.” My voice didn’t echo. The silence spell was too thick for that. “I don’t have much to ask. And I don’t expect any of you to listen.”

  I reached the flap.

  “But I’m going to throw something at you anyway.” My hand paused on the canvas. The light outside had dimmed. “Keep my soldiers safe. Tug the strings of fortune. Stack the deck or load the dice or whatever it is you lot do. Just keep them breathing. That’s all.”

  A pause.

  “Me? Do what you want. But don’t touch my people.” And then I left.

  Back into the cold. Back into the blood-stained dusk and the waiting rhythm of boots and war. It was time to gather the squad.

  Time to march.

  Time to bleed.